Monday, February 07, 2005

Serious Football Analysis

I won't bore you with the full-length story of how I was so close to winning in the office Super Bowl pool, as surely you were, too. But I will say that if McNabb gets sacked in the end zone on any of those final three plays, I'm 200 bucks richer. But I'm not. Oh well, don't it just always come down to that desperate "Come on safety!" routine. And when the Pats kicked that field goal... had it been a TD, and it should have been, what with it being 1st and goal from the three, I would've been in position to win $500. And instead of cursing at the screen, begging the stupid Eagles to hurry up and do something on the following drive and stop acting like they only needed one score to win when they actually needed two, I'd have been laughing at them as they pitifully let the clock tick away. George Costanza was right, he probably could have been an NFL coach. And so could I.

Oh, but I had other bets. Christian Fauria needed to score the first TD of the game. No dice. I also took a chance on picking the Eagles exact score. 22 points paid 20 to 1 (I'm talking $5 nets here), so I went for it. They ended up with 21. But if you watched the game, you know they really had no shot at 22.

And then it came down to one last chance at some money. I bet that the MVP would be "2 or more players," as it also paid 20 to 1. I figured it might be the type of game where they give it to an entire defense or something. When they didn't announce an MVP right away, I had some hope. I thought that even if a receiver has a great game, the QB's stats would be still be better than that receiver's: At least as many yards and TDs. So it was perfect, Branch did great, but Brady has to get credit, too. And Bruschi played well, so I had this theory: Brady, Branch, Bruschi, Tri-MVPs in honor of the so-called "Boston Three-Party" (oh god). Also, the three BR-'s, in honor of Babe Ruth's number Three and initials on his birthday for the New England team winning. Well, we've already determined that the old Babe has nothing to do with this, and it turned out Branch got the MVP all by himself. But had I known they were giving away a CAR to the winner, I wouldn't have made that stupid co-MVP bet, because they'd have had to get two (or three) cars! That's BS, I want my money back. Well, five dollars of it.

According to that Nada Surf song, making football bets makes me popular. But the popular dudes at my high school all just smoked weed and drank brews while dating and forcing themselves on the popular girls, while I stayed home and watched Headbanger's Ball. So, yeah.

Watched American Dad, the new show by the creators of Family Guy, after the game. Pretty funny. It's got the makings of a good show, very similar to Family Guy. But now I can't call Arrested Development "AD" any more, since American Dad is also an AD. Don't worry folks, you need not lose sleep over this. I'll figure something out and post it here the second I do.

All right, that's it for me. Super Sunday, it's "unbelievable," as Billy Crystal said in an SNL skit from like '82. Congrats to the other World Champion team from New England whose name ends with "iots." (Even though I can't even pretend to be a fan of them and I was just rooting for myself to win money. But it was nice to see Philly fans disappointed, since they're mostly A-holes. If they weren't, I'd have probably rooted for the underdog, but they are, so I didn't. The only cool things from Philly are Atom & His Package and the Dead Milkmen, and probably other stuff that I'm forgetting, but it's late.)